The Image (4 page)

Then, upon further reflection, I began to won der if I had been granted so much after all, the other day. I was obliged to come to a negative con clusion.

Then I could see how wrong I had been. I could even make fun of my own stupidity, for the recent conduct of little Anne suddenly appeared quite normal and obvious, to the extent that for her to have behaved any differently now seemed impossible.

The situation, in short, had not been what I thought it was.

I felt annoyed and deceived. I decided not to think about those two girls any more, or about the whole absurd story.

I waited for three more days. But, on the fourth, I telephoned Claire.

I am certain that she was waiting for my call although her voice, on the other end of the line, betrayed nothing. In the most banal conversational tone she asked me what I'd been doing, how I'd been feeling “since the last time.” I said that I was feeling fine.

Then I inquired about her health, and about the health of her friend.

“But... which friend are you talking about?”

“Anne, obviously! Are you trying to make a fool of me?”

“Anne! But of course! I'd completely forgotten. If it's Anne you want to see, you should have said so right away. I can lend her to you, my dear, with no trouble at all. You can make love to her as long as you like, if you're in that mood. What day would you like me to send her over?”

There was a brutality in her words that seemed suspicious to me. Affecting complete indifference, I pretended that I thought she was joking and moved away from this burning subject without daring to name a day.

Once I had hung up I thought about my idiotic refusal. I desired Anne very much, that was evident. But I had been afraid to find myself alone with the strange, cold girl of the bookstore who left so few openings I hardly thought I could even carry the thing off. One might as well try and have a go at Claire!

Or was the solution I had adopted, getting out of it entirely, perhaps going to lead to some far more unusual form of pleasure? And was this very hope, without my being aware of it, my real motive?

At any rate it was with Claire that I finally had made a date, at her place on the rue Jacob, on the pretext of wanting to see the photographs she had promised to show me that first day.

I thought again about the girl in the white dress kneeling under the beech tree, about the noise her stream of water made hitting the dead leaves under her dress, and about the rose, its petals all bruised, still dripping with bright beads of liquid.

I recognized the photographs at first glance: the very ones that were proffered to susceptible souls in the bookstore where I had run into Anne.

It hadn't seemed to me, however, that she was known to the house: or at least not to the salesman who waited on her.

The prints that Claire showed me that after noon were much larger and far superior in quality to those I had absent-mindedly leafed through one day in Montmartre. At the time, the pictures had struck me as being quite uninteresting, and the pictures very ordinary.

This time, on the contrary, I saw them in an entirely new light. It wasn't only because I recognized Anne as the pretty model who had posed for them, either. But I was particularly aware of their extraordinary clarity, while the other prints I had seen hadn't conveyed at all this sense of flagrant reality, more real, more palpable almost, than nature itself. Perhaps this impression was due to the lighting, or to the dramatic contrast between the blacks and whites which gave added precision to the lines of composition.

In spite of these differences, however, I was sure they were the same pictures. Claire must savour the pleasure of a slave trader in allowing the humiliated image of her friend to be sold to the first customer. And this was, as far as I could tell, the sort of gratification she'd been looking for in from the beginning.

Used in this fashion, the photographs had a heightened value for me, as well as for her. On top of this, from a technical point of view, I could be quite sincere in offering her my congratulations.

We were sitting at arm's length in two little upholstered chairs before a low table. Above us was an adjustable lamp that must have been used as a spotlight during the posing sessions.

It was the first time that I'd been to her apartment on the rue Jacob. I was agreeably surprised by the ease and cheerfulness of this room and its very modern furnishings (as well as by the rest of the apartment, from what I could tell), especially in contrast to the dark, narrow stairway and the great age of the building.

To achieve this isolation from the world outside, so different in feeling, the heavy curtains at the windows were closed even though it was broad daylight. Even if they didn't open onto a narrow courtyard, as often happens in old buildings, the windows could have only let in a dreary light, less bright yet less intimate than the clever artificial lighting in the room.

Claire handed me the photographs one after the other, first carefully examining each one herself while I was occupied with the preceding one. They were mounted on cardboard the size of regular business stationery. The glossy surface of each was protected by a transparent overlay which one turned back to look at the picture.

In the first one, Anne is wearing a short black slip with nothing underneath but her stockings and a simple garter belt like the one I already admired in the Bagatelle gardens. But these stockings do not have embroidered tops.

She is standing next to a column in the same position Claire made her assume to hide the stolen rose under her dress.

Only she is not wearing any shoes and instead of the dress she only has the slip whose thin material she is holding up with both hands, exposing the half-opened thighs and the triangle of her fleece. One leg is straight, the other slightly bent at the knee, the foot only half resting on the floor.

A lace inset decorates the top of the slip but one can't really make it out because it is pulled to one side, the right shoulder strap not being on at all and the left one having fallen off the shoulder. The black lingerie is therefore twisted around, covering half of one breast and freeing the other breast almost entirely. The breasts are perfect, not too full, far enough apart, with the brown halo that circles the nipple clearly marked but not too large. The arms are well-rounded and gracefully curved.

The face, under the loose curls, is a real triumph: the eyes consenting, the lips parted, a mingled look of ingénue charm and submissiveness.

The lighting, while accentuating the shadows, softens the lines as it defines them. The light coming from a Gothic window with austere vertical bars, a part of which can be seen in the back ground at the edge of the picture. The column in the foreground is of stone, as is the window frame, and is about the same width as the girl's hips next to it. Beyond it, at the other edge of the picture, one can see the head of an iron bed. The floor is a checkerboard pattern of very large black and white squares.

The second picture, taken closer up, encompasses the entire bed. It is a single iron bed painted black, stripped of blankets.

The sheets are in a state of great disorder. The ironwork of the two upright parts, at the head and foot, is ornate and old-fashioned: metal stems curving and twisting in spirals held together by lighter-colored rings, probably gilded.

The girl is in the same costume lying across the bed on the rumpled sheets. She is flat on her stom ach but turned a little, one hip higher than the other. Her face is buried in the pillow, her disheveled hair spread over it; her right arm, bent up ward, frames her head; the left arm, at an angle to her body, extends in the direction of the wall. On this side, without the shoulder strap, one can just see the beginning of the breast under the armpit. The slip is again amply pulled up, this time in the back, needless to say. The waist and the hips intersected by the black lines of the garter belt.

The buttocks are rounded and full, highly evocative. Their firm shape points up some pretty dimples into play by the asymmetry of her position. The thighs are opened to a hollow of darkness. The left knee, bent way up, disappears under a fold of the sheets while the foot touches the extended right leg.

The picture is taken from fairly high up so as to display the buttocks in the most accommodating position.

In the next one the girl is entirely naked, hands chained behind her back, kneeling on the black and white checkerboard floor. The picture is taken in profile and also from above. One sees nothing but the girl, kneeling naked on the floor, and the whip.

Her head is lowered. Her hair falls on either side of her face, hiding it, exposing her neck which is bent down as far as it will go. The tip of one breast appears below the shoulder. The thighs are together, leaning backward, and the trunk is bent forward in a way that makes the buttocks protrude most fetchingly as they await their punishment. The wrists are bound together behind the back at waist height, by a slender chain of shiny metal. A similar chain ties the ankles one against the other. The whip is resting on the squares of the floor not far from the little upturned feet, the soles of which one can just see.

The whip is of braided leather like those that are used on dogs. From the thin, supple tip it becomes progressively thicker and harder up to the part that one holds in one's hand, which is almost rigid, forming a sort of very short handle. The lash, motionless on the floor, delineates an S whose narrowest tip curves back on itself.

The girl is still naked and on her knees, chained now to the foot of the bed. One sees her from the rear. The ankles are closely bound together but crossed, one foot over the other, which forces the knees wide apart.

The distance between the two hands is much greater, however, on either side of the blonde head and at the same level.

The arms are held almost horizontally, the elbows bent at a right angle toward the front. The wrists, still with the same metal chains, are attached to either end of the top bar of the iron bedstead.

The trunk and the thighs are held straight with out the least bending of the hips. But the whole body is slightly twisted to one side, due to the fa tigue caused by this position. The head hangs forward and to the right, almost touching the shoulder.

The buttocks are marked in every direction by deep lines, very clear and distinct, which crisscross the central crack, more or less stressed according to how hard the whip fell.

This picture of little Anne chained to her bed, her knees in a most uncomfortable position, is obviously more moving because of the cruel evi dence of the torture she has undergone. The black ironwork forms a pattern of elegant arabesques be hind her.

The nude girl is bound to the stone column by thick ropes. She is facing the camera, her legs open, her arms raised. A black band covers her eyes. Her mouth is screaming, or else distorted by the extremity of her suffering.

The ankles are tied to the pillar on the right and on the left, diametrically opposite each other, so that the legs are wide apart, the knees slightly bent. The arms are pulled up and back, only visible up to the elbows. The hands, no doubt, are tied together behind the pillar.

The ropes bite deeply into the flesh. One goes under the right armpit and across to the other side of the neck, imprisoning the whole shoulder. Others are tied around the arms and the ankles. Others, finally, hold the legs above and below each knee so as to force them back against the stone and as far apart as possible.

The tortured body, whose reflexes clearly show that it is struggling against its bonds, has two deep wounds from which blood flows freely.

One extends from the tip of the breast to the armpit, on the side where there are no ropes. The blood pours down one whole side in little rivers of varying force which run together and separate again in an elaborate network which covers one hip and a good part of the stomach. It even flows into the navel and the pubic hair in a thick stream which runs down the belly.

The second wound, in the lower part of the body, ornaments the other side. It pierces the groin just above the pubis, penetrating the lower belly and curving down to the inner part of the thigh. The blood from this wound flows in large rivers, almost covering the whole area, running down to rope which binds the body above the knees. There it accumulates a moment and then pours out directly onto one of the white flagstones where a pool has formed.

This picture, extremely fascinating in its horror despite the somewhat romantic exaggeration, could only be the result of a trick. The two wounds and the quantities of blood undoubtedly had been faked by using red paint on Anne's obliging body. But it was done so well that one could easily be fooled, especially since the contortions of the vic tim were quite convincing.

Perhaps it was the meticulous way the streams of blood had been designed, and their too obvious fluidity, that gave the whole thing away. In any case, far from obscuring the harmonious lines of the body, they seemed to give it a new beauty.

The last photograph was a logical conclusion. The tortured body of the girl, apparently lifeless, is stretched out on the black and white checkerboard floor. She still wears nothing but the black band across her eyes.

She is lying on her right side, the upper part of her body half flung back so as to turn her face into the camera. The right arm is stretched the length of her body while the left arm is raised over her head hiding the ear but giving a good view of the downy armpit and the breast.

The legs are bent, the right one slightly and left much more, the knee pulled way up. From the way the picture was taken and the lighting, one can clearly see the inside of the right thigh, the buttocks, the lower pubic region and all the surrounding tender flesh.

The amount of blood which gushes from the central wound, flowing onto the upper thigh and the floor on either side of it, gives the impression that the girl has been fatally stabbed, or something of that nature.

Blood trickles out of her half-opened mouth and down her cheek before dripping to the floor. Apart from this detail the face seems peaceful, almost happy. One might almost think, for a moment, that the mouth is smiling.